In Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy the Vogons recite poetry which causes physical pain to anyone unfortunate enough to hear it. Malik Yusef’s lyrics may not be quite that extreme, but the onslaught of his creepy soft focus romantic posturing is difficult to cope with.

Listening to Yusef purring his not so sweet nothings in your ear is like eavesdropping on your parents on their anniversary. However, it’s not all just cringe worthy seduction – there’s also enough blandly well intentioned advice and preaching to fill the pulpit for a month of Sundays. Leader (The Jesus Piece) pushes Kanye’s Jesus Walks to Hillsong levels of devotion to ‘the man from the ghetto of Galilee’ with lines as laughable as ‘they say when it rains it pours/ but he came to reign for the poor’.

Yusef offers his views on life and love; merging Hallmark sentimentality with a lame wordplay and open mic poetry jam delivery. Originally intended to feature 24 tracks – one for each hour of the dawn/dusk concept – the loose concept album somehow expanded to feature 30 tracks, making it a double album as bloated as Kanye’s ego.

Though his name is on the cover Kanye West is present on only two tracks; one on each disk. The album’s sub standard production and lazy beats making it all too obvious that Kanye’s presence is limited to an executive producer role. When he does appear with his B-side scraps, he handles the production himself. Promised Land with Adam Levine of Maroon 5 is essentially a Late Registration cast off, while on Magic Man he brings in John Legend and Common to take on the issue of domestic violence. It’s a serious and soulful cut, but sadly most of the record is so seriously poor that any Kanye diehards are best advised to just find Kanye’s cameos on a bootleg mixtape and avoid the rest of this record.

Other guests dragged into this to hour folly include Destiny’s Child Michelle Williams on By Your Side, Twista and Jenifer Hudson, who shows off her American Idol warble on Too Knight. The diversity of influences – from opera on V.E.R.S.E. to corporate rock – tries to inject some spark into the record but can’t distract from the monotony of the album’s tendency to bland R&B. Brief moments hint at something better – Not Love harks back to the old ‘chipmunk’ soul sample production of Kanye circa Through the Wire and KRS 1 rolls out a strong rap on My People, there’s not enough quality material for an EP let alone a double record.

The record is best summed up with by the truly awful The Return. It begins promisingly with Mr Hudson’s vocals hinting at Adam Levine’s work on Kanye’s Heard ‘em Say before Yusef introduces the Kayne of old to the latest version with a heavily vocoded vocal. Then things go wrong – horribly, excruciatingly wrong to a level that only distorted lyrics almost entirely composed of orgasm puns can possibly attain.

“She said that we were so cum-patable/ to me nothing else cum-pares/ with others she was cum-peating/ but Malik you cum-pleate me/ cum-pleatly/ thankyou/ I said you’re wel-cum.”

It’s unlikely that anything other than the soundtrack of a Nikki Webster sex tape could possibly create a more cum-temptable string of sounds. Day or night, this record is a dud and massive cum-down for Kanye’s status as a tastemaker.